“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” - Albert Einstein

Friday, July 28, 2006

Lopez on terror

So a very bad thing happens.

A Muslim walks into a Jewish center in Seattle and kills someone and wounds five others. Do I think this is motivated by hate? Of course, I don't think terrorism. I think nutjob.

If someone loses it and goes on a rampage, that's nutty. If someone is motivated by an ideology and kills innocents in order to send some sort of message, that's terrorism. So sayeth Nitpicker. So sayeth Merriam-Webster. So sayeth the FBI.

So this tragic event occurs and the first thing that Kathy Lopez over at National Review's "Corner" can think is that the damned biased media FBI won't say the "t word."

Yes, my bringing this up is, perhaps, as petty as Lopez's comment--this does seem like a stupid and ridiculous thing to be concerned with at this point--but why is it that, when some whackjob walks in and begins shooting at people erraticly, Lopez wants to call him a "terrorist," but when someone methodically plants four bombs over a two year period--killing two people and wounding more than 110 others--she thinks the media is being excessive when they call him an "extremist"?

Is it only terror when she disagrees with a person's motives or does she just think anything bad thing a Muslim does should be called terrorism?

The latest I've seen (links from Hominid Views) http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/279424_convert30ww.htmlhttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003162640_investigation30m.htmlpaint a picture of someone desperately confused. The first article asserts that Haq had been baptized into a non-denominational christian group "last year", but stopped attending that groups meetings after a "few months." It also reports that he visited an Islamic Center (which his father had helped to found) just two weeks ago.

What ever was driving this man, it appears to be far from terrorism, as Terry pointed out.

Sadly, that didn't stop some (e.g., Lopez) from branding it as terrorism. I just scanned "The Corner" to see if Ms Lopez has anything more to say on the topic. There was nothing of substance.